


Safe at Home

by HideInPlainSight



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Age Play, Catharsis, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Daddy Kink, Daddy/Boy Play, Emotional Baggage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Abuse, Roleplaying Abuse To Work Through Feelings, Roleplaying Caregiving/Spoiling To Restore Balance, Sexual Roleplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:15:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HideInPlainSight/pseuds/HideInPlainSight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After working through the emotional/mental residue of John's childhood sexual abuse through intense roleplay, John and Sherlock share catharsis, renew trust, and ultimately restore balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Whatever You Need

**Author's Note:**

> This story was difficult for me to write. It will be difficult for some people to read. It contains a reenactment of childhood sexual abuse (in a sexual roleplay context, between consenting and informed adults, and with plenty of discussion and aftercare) which some readers may find intensely distressing. It includes grooming behaviour/dialogue. It includes roleplaying non-con/dub-con (though no *actual* non-con).
> 
> The characters in this story are ADULTS involved in sexual roleplay.
> 
> It is my sincere hope that this story will help some readers examine and perhaps work through complex feelings; writing it did that for me. My aim here was a catharsis, followed by some degree of healing.
> 
> If you feel you wish to discuss this fic and the issues it brings forward, please be kind to each other in the comments threads. I usually orphan works posted under this username; I will keep this one tied to the account so that I am able to delete hateful/hurtful comments directed to other readers/commenters.

 

 

“Why are you so _naughty_?” John brought down the flat, wooden back of his hairbrush against Sherlock’s already well-reddened bottom: first one cheek— _smack!_ —then the other— _smack!_ Sherlock was over John’s knee, trousers around his thighs, open shirt rumpled up around his shoulder blades, and he sniveled and sobbed against the duvet. It was the sniveling that had made John move from smacking his arse with his bare hand (thirty smacks; Daddy John was at his wit’s end with his boy Locky and his seemingly willful refusal to obey Daddy’s scold about not sucking his thumb)—Sherlock had rubbed his snotty nose and upper lip against the coverlet during the spanking and it had only made John crosser. So out came the brush (Sherlock hated it, had even tried to hide it once after a spanking). Now he was crying in earnest, lurching forward with a loud whimper after each blow landed, trying to wriggle away.

It had been an awful week. John couldn’t remember when he’d last seen the sun; the weather was wet and raw and sharp. The case they’d worked on was hideous: the disciplinary head of an elite boarding school had turned up dead in spectacular fashion, sawn in eight pieces with his own hacked-off prick jammed in his mouth, and in the course of the investigation it came clear he’d been raping a parade of dozens, if not hundreds, of schoolboys for nearly thirty years. John had been simmering on a low boil of barely-suppressed rage for days, and every one of Sherlock’s social _faux pas_ in the intervening time had grated on him. Sherlock’s usual obliviousness to the feelings of others had risen to new heights—or perhaps John’s tolerance for them had sunk—and John was worn out from constantly correcting him and apologizing for him. He’d thought a few hours in this game of theirs, after Sherlock had opened the way for it, would help him settle back into himself. Sherlock’s wide-eyed, sometimes silly, up-for-anything and eager-to-please boy persona gave John a chance to indulge his nurturing side, love Sherlock unconditionally, and of course, they were both always well-pleased and sated by the end, the snuggly afterglow one of John’s favourite places to land.

As he paddled Sherlock’s backside, though, John found himself becoming only more and more angry, instead of steadying and evening out. He tried to shove it aside—that real world stuff could wait, his boy needed his daddy; and soon enough they’d be having spectacular orgasms and falling asleep in a haze of good feeling and endorphins—but with each punishing smack of the improvised paddle against Sherlock’s backside, John felt only _more_ agitated, lower, meaner.

“And now your prick’s hard, too? You’re incorrigible!” – _smack!—smack!_ — “You know you’re meant to settle down and take your punishment. You oughtn’t be thinking about. . .”

All at once, he tossed the brush on the bed, lay one palm in the small of Sherlock’s back. His guts felt like black sludge, and he knew he’d do actual damage if he kept up the spanking. And if he kept talking, the damage he could do would likely be even worse.

“Sherlock,” he said, in his normal voice, which sounded woeful and miserable even to his own ears. “I need a minute.”

He helped Sherlock up off his lap, wiped the tears and snot from his face with a couple of tissues from the nightstand, which he balled up and tossed on the bed. Sherlock let his trousers fall and stepped out of them while John fetched him his dressing gown, then slid it up onto his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” John started. “I know it might take you a bit to come up.”

Sherlock sniffed hard, let John arrange the dressing gown over his back, tie it shut at his waist. John touched his face.

“Can we maybe have a cup of tea? I’m just. . .not in the right state of mind.”

Sherlock nodded. “It’s all right,” he said, and there was a certain softness in his face, his dreamy gaze, that let John know Sherlock would need time to come back to himself. “I can make tea,” Sherlock offered.

“I’ll get it,” John told him. “But. I don’t want to leave you in here alone if you need me.”

Sherlock scrubbed his face with his long-fingered hands. “I was thinking the same about you.”

John offered his hand, Sherlock took it, and they moved to the kitchen. John sank heavily into his usual chair. Sherlock, with his sore backside, did not sit, instead went into the cupboard for mugs and tea sachets, started fixing them each a cup.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock,” John started. “Something’s. . .weird. . .with me.”

“The case,” Sherlock said simply. “You’ve been out of sorts for days.”

“Did it feel different to you? Just now, I mean.”

Sherlock poured the hot water from the kettle into the mugs, went for milk from the fridge.

“Not really. Perhaps more strict than usual. You don’t usually change the punishment, or augment it, once you’ve begun.” Sherlock shrugged as he set John’s mug in front of him, and resumed a pose near the worktop that allowed him to lean on his hip.

“You can’t even sit,” John said, scolding himself. “It was too much.”

“It’s only because we’ve just stopped. I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

They blew over the surfaces of their tea, sipped at it. John could feel the creases in his face from frowning.

“I felt something. . . _ugly_. . .coming up,” John started. “I wanted to say some things I normally would never.” He looked at Sherlock, whose expression was placid, attentive, and open. “Cruel things.”

Sherlock waited, listening.

“It’s not. . .” God this was hard. John hated talking like this, these negotiations. He’d been so relieved when the bulk of it was clearly behind them, after the initial few awkward discussions about Sherlock wanting them to sometimes enact these scenarios, play these roles. “That’s not our. . .thing. Vibe. _Thing_. Oh, fuck this.”

“Keep talking, you’re doing well.”

John pressed his thumbs against his closed eyes. “I had this urge to, I don’t know. There’s a word for it.”

Sherlock raised his eyebrows.

“ _Groom_ you.” John shuddered, felt flayed open and oozing; it was repulsive, and yet, there it was, that ugly urge—inside _him_.

“Ah.”

“And that’s not.” John rattled his fingers against the tabletop. “. . . _On_.”

Sherlock kept quiet.

“You’re right, I’ve been out of sorts. And all that we learned about that—” the roll of his hand through the air made it obvious to Sherlock who John was talking about.

“Scum.”

“The bit of stuff on the bottom of scum’s shoe,” John corrected. “It did get under my skin a bit. Men like him—not even men— _refuse_ like him. It’s infuriating.”

“I agree.”

“The things he did. The way he must have manipulated those boys, warped them into accepting that all those things he did were somehow their own fault, or made them think it was normal, or terrorized them to keep them quiet. . .” John shook his head. “I guess it’s just not out of my system yet. The disgust.”

“Understandable,” Sherlock said quietly. “I only suggested this—” he motioned toward the bedroom “—because I thought it might help us connect a bit. I was caught up in the details of the case.” His voice softened. “I saw you were struggling, John, and I apologise that I didn’t take time to—“

John waved it away. “I don’t expect you to stop and take my temperature while you’re working, Sherlock. This is _my_ thing.” Before he thought to stop himself, he blurted. “It just stirred up some old rot I’m still carrying from when it was done to me.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened slightly but he didn’t say anything.

John tried to wave this away, too, but it wasn’t as easy. “Been through it in therapy. Years back. But every now and then things come up that poke at old wounds. Few and far between, but clearly this was one of those things. I don’t want to take out any of my dark mood on you, though, especially not. . .” he let it trail. He looked straight at Sherlock’s raindrop-shaped eyes. “What I love about this thing of ours is that even though it gets a bit rough now and again—“ he motioned at Sherlock’s awkward posture “what it’s really about is this absolutely precious _gift_ you give me—of your vulnerability and trust. It’s therapeutic for me. Taking care of you. Protecting you.”

“For me, too,” Sherlock said.

“And none of that is what I’m feeling right now. It’s like a bad mix of chemicals or something. It’s all. . .” he gestured helplessly. “Askew.”

Sherlock sipped his tea and gazed into the middle distance, thoughtful.

John pressed his fingertips against a headache taking root between his eyebrows. “Maybe we should—I’ll take care of your welts and tuck you into bed—but maybe we should call it a night.”

“What if we didn’t?” Sherlock asked.

“What are you thinking?” John replied. Sherlock’s steadiness was reassuring.

“It’s unfair, what you were given to carry for the rest of your life, when you were a boy.”

“Damned right,” John agreed quickly, feeling a twinge of fresh anger. Sherlock’s metaphor was apt; John had got it down to manageable size now, but he still had to carry it, and always would.

“How old?” Sherlock asked gently.

“Eight.” John let it land, then decided not to hold back. “Nine, ten, eleven. Twelve.”

Sherlock caught his gaze and asked softly, “Can I hold you for a minute?”

John’s throat thickened with gratitude. He nodded and got up from his chair, feeling so much heavier than usual, and opened his arms. Sherlock moved into John’s space, pressed close and wrapped his sinewy, forever-long arms tight around John’s back, kissed his temple. After a few long, pregnant moments in which neither of them spoke, only held on, they broke apart. This time both of them sat, though Sherlock winced a bit as his backside met the seat of the chair.

“I was just thinking,” Sherlock picked up his earlier thread. “It’s unfair you’re still carrying the burden he gave you; maybe you could give it up to me a bit. I can carry some of it for you.”

John shook his head, not wanting to admit that Sherlock’s suggestion sounded like an immense relief. An urge to say aloud, or even act on, the dark things he’d been feeling—was still feeling, still thinking, couldn’t seem to shake—was frightening. He didn’t like what it might mean about him and who he was, even in some small way, deep down.

“Hear me out,” Sherlock went on, and laid his hand on top of John’s, wrapping his fingers around to hold John steady. “I never went through that. I’m a grown man, without any of that residue. I’m able to process these things in a different, less. . .charged. . .way. I’m not afraid of the things you might say to me, or the ways you might express it physically.”

“I’m not like him.”

“I know you’re not,” Sherlock said instantly, firmly, but not loud. “You’re _not_ like him. You would never exploit a child; you don’t have those kinds of attractions.”

“ _Absolutely not_.” It was true. He’d always had age-appropriate attractions, and if anything, his having been victimized had only made him fiercely protective of children. He was full of righteous anger, hyper-vigilant.

“So these things you were feeling just now, really it’s the same as what we do—playing a role. It’s just another way to process emotion. Maybe saying those things aloud, or enacting whatever you might want to, can help you get rid of it.” Sherlock’s voice was so kind, and the fact he was using his big brain to analyze John’s emotional needs was touching. John felt partially unburdened just knowing Sherlock was accepting of him, wanted to help him through this muck.

But even still, John’s mind was racing; he wanted to find a _reason_ he could live with, as to why he would have such dark urges. Something occurred to him, that he’d never even thought of in therapy, or if he had, he’d stuffed it back down because—like the feelings of physical pleasure he’d often experienced during his abuse, despite the shame and helplessness—it was too frightening to confront. “It was the dad of one of my mates. The mum knew how bad it was for me at home so I was at theirs all the time and she spoiled me. She was lovely; she can’t have known what her husband really was, she’d never have allowed it. God. . .” John paused; he’d had an epiphany even as he was speaking. “She’s another one whose life he made into a lie, isn’t she?” John shook his head, feeling sad for his friend’s mum who really had been a lovely, kind lady who saw John was in need of a safe place and some peace and quiet. After a moment thinking this over, he went on.

“At that age, I was just starting to recognize my attraction to other boys. And because it was new to me, and he was male, I think it got tangled up in my head somehow. . .like that I shouldn’t feel frightened or ashamed, because if I wanted boys—men—but _boys_ , I was a boy, and I didn’t even really know what I wanted to _do_ with them then, just innocent stuff like hugging and being close, because what did I even _know_ about sex then, at age eight?—” John felt like he was rambling but Sherlock was clearly listening, following, his face open and receptive, and it was another reassurance to John. “If I wanted boys anyway, I guess in my child’s brain maybe I justified it that way. That if you liked boys, men would know and take advantage. Or that if you liked boys your own age, you should like grown men, too. Because with no justification in place in my own mind, it was too terrifying. I wouldn’t have been able to cope.”

“No, of course not,” Sherlock said. “That’s common with abused children. The brain will do whatever it can to preserve sanity in an insane situation. That’s perfectly normal. Your reactions were normal.”

God, he truly was a genius. John’s heart swelled.

“I don’t want to say those things, like he said to me. I don’t want to bring that into what we share when you’re my boy and I’m your daddy. I feel like it makes me a sick pervert.”

Sherlock half-smiled and he squeezed John’s hand. “Some would say our game makes us sick perverts, regardless. It’s only because they don’t live in our heads. It doesn’t feel that way to me.”

“No,” John agreed. “No, it’s good for us, and none of their business.”

“No one would ever know but you and me. Look where you are.” Sherlock’s thumb stroked John’s wrist.

John caught precisely what Sherlock was trying to remind him of, and he cut a quick glance around the fluorescent-lit kitchen. Their love nest _slash_ biohazardous hovel. Safe at home. Just the two of them.

Sherlock added, “And I don’t think you’re sick. I know you’re not. Heartsick, maybe.”

John nodded. His eyes prickled. When did Sherlock become so insightful about the feelings of others? No, not others. Only John.

“I love _all_ of you,” Sherlock told him, ducking his head catch John’s eye. “I’m not afraid.”

John thought a minute; Sherlock waited patiently. The only sound was the skin of Sherlock’s thumb scraping vaguely against the back of John’s wrist as he stroked it back and forth, soothing, encouraging. Sherlock had stumbled straight onto the perfect phrase, that he loved all of John. John frequently lingered over the idea that he loved and wanted Sherlock in every way—stroppy, fidgety, stonily silent, publicly brilliant and made entirely of angles and edges, privately soft and needy and sweetly adoring. He would do this very same thing for Sherlock, if the tables were turned, he knew, in a heartbeat—John would take any scabby, horrid part of Sherlock’s heart and tuck into his own just to give Sherlock some relief. He could trust that Sherlock wasn’t just talking; he meant to do just that for John. And it really might help.

“Not in our bed,” John said at last.

“We can use the spare room.”

“And nothing violent; no punishment. I can’t mix up physical violence with these dark feelings. It’s too. . .I can’t look into that abyss. I’m afraid of where that could go.”

“Fair enough,” Sherlock agreed. Then, with another sweet half-smile, “I’ve about had my fill tonight, anyway.”

“If you say stop, we stop, and we don’t worry about me. If it’s too much for you, it’s too much. I’ve lived with it this long, but you’ve never had to.”

Sherlock nodded, acquiescing.

“And. . .” John licked his lips. “I can’t be your daddy. Don’t call me that, don’t even think of me that way.”

“All fine,” Sherlock said.

“Because your daddy. . .he. . .I mean, I— _fuck_ , talking about this is so complicated. It’s making me crazily self-conscious. Now I _really_ feel like a sick pervert.” John’s gut was tightening again.

“I know you, John. You’re none of those things.”

John was adamant. “I would _never_ harm you. Especially in that context, being Daddy to my boy, I would _never_. That’s sacred.”

“I know. It’s our safest place. You know I trust you not to do me any harm.”

“Right. So this has to be different. I need it to be separate.”

“I understand. It’s a wise approach. And in the end, if I don’t like it, I can delete it.”

Sherlock had finally said the wrong thing, and John protested immediately, from his gut. “You _can’t_ , Sherlock. You can’t leave me the only one remembering I said or did things to you that were expressly designed to harm a soul.”

Sherlock shook his head as if to release the idea from it. “You’re right, of course. I’m sorry. If I don’t like it, we’ll stop, and we’ll talk it through. We’ll be fine.” He smiled the smile reserved only for John, a bit sideways, completely genuine. “Maybe Daddy can take care of me after. It might help sort us both.”

“That’s a good idea, actually. If not right away, then next time.” John took a long breath and checked in with himself. “So. . .what does this look like?”

“You tell me.”

John did tell him, not the specifics, but the gist, and in the course of a few minutes they’d outlined a scenario—a box to keep it in—so John knew his dark feelings were safely contained and anything he felt, said, or did to Sherlock in that time wouldn’t spill over into their real life together, and to reassure him Sherlock would be safe even if things got frightening.

“Are you _sure_?” John said at last.

“Please let me,” was his reply. “I can carry it.” And although it might have sounded like he was saying he could handle the fear or pain that might be dealt to him—which was also true—what he meant was that he could accept the burden of John’s least pleasant feelings, the darkest parts of him, and by so doing, may make John’s heart a little lighter. Sherlock was a gift John would never comprehend his having earned.

John laid his hand on Sherlock’s cheek, pulled him in for a kiss, then bumped his forehead against Sherlock’s temple, stroked his nose up Sherlock’s cheekbone, and finally kissed him again beside the corner of his closed eye. Against Sherlock’s eyelashes he whispered, “I would never, ever harm you.”

Sherlock drew back, smiled gently, and said, “I know. I’ll see you upstairs in a few minutes.” He seemed reluctant to leave John behind, and his fingertips were the last to go, breaking contact with John’s only when there was nothing else for it but to let go. After a quick detour into their bedroom, Sherlock took the steps two at a time, and John heard the door click nearly-shut.

In their bedroom, John stripped down to his boxers and sleeveless vest, then went into the bottom drawer of the wardrobe for an old dressing gown—not his usual one—which would, after tonight, definitely be going in the sack for the rag man. He rummaged a bit in the nightstand, then took a moment to smooth the bedding where he’d recently sat with Sherlock over his knee. He retrieved the now-dry, tear-stained tissue from where he’d thrown it on the duvet and dropped it in the little bin by the dresser, then turned back the top edge of the covers so the bed would be ready for them to slip into when they returned to it.

He sat down on the edge of the bed—Sherlock’s side, closest to the door—and picked up the hair brush he’d been spanking Sherlock with when his darkest thoughts started boiling up, violently breaking the surface of his consciousness so he couldn’t ignore them, couldn’t force them back down. He patted the palm of his hand repeatedly with the smooth, wooden back of the brush, and closed his eyes. After a moment collecting himself, John decided to be unafraid, to let Sherlock do him the kindness of accepting some of his burden. Then he went upstairs.

Stopping by the door, he found it was open just a crack, and the room was dark. He listened, and within a moment heard a gusty grunt, muffled by the pillow, then a sucking breath. A beat or two of silence, and another needy noise— _mmn!_ —and a sharp inhale. He knocked as he pushed the door open.

“Oi, bed check, mate,” he said, friendly as could be. The light from the hallway illuminated Sherlock’s pale, wide-eyed face as he lay curled on his side under the covers, his dressing gown a rumpled heap on the floor. “Still awake? It’s well past time for boys to be sleeping.”

“ _Mm_ ,” Sherlock half-answered. “Can’t sleep.” All the edge had gone out of his voice, and he lisped a little around the “s”. _Can’t sthleep_.

“Happens sometimes. Can I come in?”

Sherlock shrugged as if he didn’t mind; John crossed to the little lamp on the far side of the room and switched it on, then went back to press the door closed with a decisive click before crossing to the bed and sitting on its edge. He laid his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder and stroked down his arm as far as the edge of the blankets.

“All tucked away, I see,” he said, letting a little more gravel into his voice, following the contour of Sherlock’s arm with his hand, over the blankets, until it became clear Sherlock’s hand was resting at his crotch. John’s fingers found his wrist and wrapped partway around and twisted, stroking, potentially soothing. He let go a little chuckle; Sherlock turned his face toward the pillow. “Don’t be shy,” John told him. “Thinking about a girl, were you?”

Sherlock pressed his nose further into the pillow and shook his head.

“No?” John ran his fingers back up the length of Sherlock’s arm. “ _Oh_ ,” he said then, sounding knowing. “Thinking about a boy, then? Maybe a boy at school?”

“ _Mmf_ ,” Sherlock grunted noncommittally into the pillow.

“That’s fine,” John told him, and two fingers rode up the side of Sherlock’s neck into his hair, nails against his scalp, gently twisting curls around his knuckles. He tugged gently, persuading, and Sherlock lifted his face to meet John’s gaze, then quickly looked away again in his embarrassment at having been caught. John told him, “It’s fine to get excited and want to touch yourself. So, then. . .we know you’re a big boy. No need to be embarrassed.”

Sherlock did a slow-motion wriggle beneath the blankets, as if uncomfortable. John ran fingers through his hair, down the back of his neck, then again.

“You’re such a fine-looking boy. So handsome. . .” John’s fingers slipped down between Sherlock’s collarbones, over the worn-thin fabric of the old t-shirt he wore, and he dragged a flat hand across Sherlock’s chest. “Oh, what’s this?” he grinned, and licked his lips, going back for another pass over Sherlock’s hardened nipple. “You really _are_ a big boy. That feels good?” Two fingertips circled Sherlock’s nipple in a shrinking spiral, crumpling his t-shirt as he went.

Sherlock’s voice was croaky, thick with sleepiness and something else that John’s deep gut reacted to. “Yes. Feels good.”

“You’re excited.”

Sherlock hesitated, but eventually, quietly, he breathed, “ _M-hm_.”

John turned more toward Sherlock, raising one knee up onto the bed so that his dressing gown shifted, coming open in front where he’d belted it quite loosely. “It’s all right to feel sexy. You should be pleased that you’re so grown-up.” John cut a glance to the spot where he knew Sherlock’s hand rested beneath the covers. “Do you, then? Feel sexy?”

Sherlock hesitated again. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What word do you use when you talk about your private parts?” John asked, trying to sound merely curious but aware that he was failing, and shifted his attentions to Sherlock’s other nipple, pinching and tugging through the t-shirt, rougher now as his own excitement began to flare. He worked to steady his voice around shortening breath. “You know the grown-up words?”

Sherlock shivered a little, collapsed his chest away from John’s fingers, which gave chase and resumed the teasing spiral motion.

“Go on and tell me.” John’s voice fell heavy in his own ears. He licked his lips, and they stayed apart.

“Penis,” Sherlock spit out quickly.

“That’s right. That’s the proper word. Most boys your age still use kid words. What did you call it when you were littler?”

Sherlock’s eyes were wide and darting and he made a show of stretching, shifting in the bed, moving away from John’s touch against his shirt front.

“Willy.” So quiet it was almost a whisper.

John huffed a quick little laugh at this. “Feels silly, now, doesn’t? You, such a big boy, even saying a word like that.”

“It is a bit silly,” Sherlock agreed. _Sthilly_.

John reached up to ruffle Sherlock’s hair, roughing up his fringe, then let his fingers trail back and down through the waves, stroking as if to send Sherlock off to sleep.

John cleared muck from his throat, then wondered, “I bet a big boy like you knows lots of words by now. More grown-up words for your private parts. Maybe even some sort of dirty ones.” John’s fingers brushed Sherlock’s cheek, and down his neck, and Sherlock ducked his chin. “Ah. Ticklish?”

“A little.”

“Sorry, then.” John went back to dragging fingers through Sherlock’s hair. “So, do the boys at school use dirty words?”

“Not much.” Sherlock shrugged.

“What have you heard them say?” John prompted. “Maybe the boy you were thinking about that made you feel sexy. Does he talk dirty?” John’s gut felt full of boiling tar, but his cock was just as hot and roiling. He caught a thick lock of hair between thumb and two fingers and tugged, gentle and slow but long. Sherlock’s head followed the motion. “Oh, but maybe you don’t know any dirty, grown-up words, after all. Maybe you’re not such a big boy.”

“Prick,” Sherlock spat out, in a rush to show off how grown-up and unafraid he was of dirty words. “Dick. Cock.”

John let out a low groan through closed lips. “Which of those is dirtiest, do you think?” He tugged Sherlock’s hair again, slow and long, in a different spot. “Which one feels dirtiest in your mouth?”

“Cock,” Sherlock said, more quietly this time, losing a little of his breath in the excitement.

“God, you dirty boy,” John muttered, and dragged his hand down onto Sherlock’s jaw. He forced his thumb into Sherlock’s mouth, felt Sherlock’s tongue retreat from it. “You were thinking about some other boy’s cock just now when I came in, weren’t you?” He pressed down and Sherlock couldn’t get away from it, his tongue hot and velvety against the pad of John’s probing thumb. “Pulling your hard little prick. . .and thinking about _sucking_?”

Sherlock shook his head “no” and tried to turn away, but John held him steady by pressure against his chin and jaw. He leaned close to Sherlock’s face. “Suck it,” he demanded. Sherlock closed his lips, thrust his tongue forward beneath John’s thumb, which sent a ricochet of heat-lightning straight to his prick. Sherlock whimpered momentarily but began to suck. His eyes closed. “There we are,” John murmured soothingly. “There’s a good boy who listens well. Think about sucking that boy’s prick. What would that taste like? You’d like it; you’re dirty that way.”

John’s scrabbling hand found Sherlock’s and dragged it into his own lap. Sherlock let the hand remain limp in John’s grasp as he rubbed and ground it against the erection now fully obvious beneath his boxers, between his parted thighs. John jutted his hips forward, pressed Sherlock’s slack knuckles against his bollocks briefly. Sherlock let out a distressed whine and stopped sucking John’s thumb.

“Don’t be shy,” John told him. “We can make each other feel nice. It will help us both sleep.” He withdrew his hand from Sherlock’s face, dragged covers down and Sherlock’s t-shirt up so he could scrub Sherlock’s saliva from his thumb onto Sherlock’s nipple. “Look how responsive you are,” he marveled as Sherlock’s nipple beaded up hard. He pinched it, rolled it, and Sherlock made an urgent sound at the top of his throat. “You like that, I can tell, dirty boy.”

As soon as John released his wrist, Sherlock jammed his hand under the covers at his side. John shoved Sherlock’s t-shirt up high under his armpits to see more of his smooth chest, dragged his hand across and around, then ducked his head to close his mouth around Sherlock’s nipple, wet lips sealing an O, tongue lapping hard, up and up and up, until he felt the tightening of the furled flesh. He sucked hard, thinking of the mark he could leave in a perfect, purple circle around Sherlock’s little nipple, how sore it would be in the morning—for days to come—a reminder of him for Sherlock to keep. Sherlock wriggled and shifted beneath him, and John caught both his wrists easily, pinned him flat on his back against the mattress with his forearms against Sherlock’s biceps. He sucked and sucked, drawing up so hard he felt the flesh of Sherlock’s nipple shift from tight and wrinkly to soft and swollen against his tongue.

“Um. . .” Sherlock said, and his shoulders were restless against the mattress.

John hummed and it turned into a groan; Sherlock radiated a sort of sweet discomfort—innocent and curious at once—and other things, too, but John ignored them. His lips fell away from Sherlock’s swollen, dusky nipple. John looked down the length of Sherlock’s squirming body, still covered with blankets from the waist down. “Here, cocky boy, I know a way we can both feel good.” He looked up again to find Sherlock biting his lips, his chin crumpled and his eyebrows crooked. “Tell me again your dirtiest word,” John urged, and his fingers dragged up through Sherlock’s hair once more.

All the former bravado had gone out of Sherlock’s voice; he whispered uncertainly, “Cock.”

“Is your pretty cock hard there under the bedclothes? Tell me the truth now. I’ll know if you if you’re lying.”

Sherlock hesitated. “Yes.”

John sucked his teeth. “Mine, too. We’re all right. You know how to make it feel good right? You were tugging on it when I came in.”

Sherlock nodded and closed his eyes, heat flushing his cheeks pink.

“Don’t be shy now, you’re doing fine,” John reassured, though his tone was anything but comforting. “When you’re stroking it—stroking your cock—do you do it all the way to the finish?”

Sherlock nodded again.

“How do you know you’re finished?” John asked, and found Sherlock’s wrist once more, digging beneath the sheets for it. Sherlock resisted his pull but John was insistent, and he held Sherlock’s palm steady so he could rock his prick up against it a bit, rolling his hips as he talked.

Sherlock turned his head. “I don’t like this,” he said quietly.

“ _Shh_ , you’re fine. You’re a big boy. I know you do like it. You’re feeling sexy, and so am I, and we’re going to make each other feel so nice.” John’s breath came hot and hard, as he bucked up against Sherlock’s hand though he had to hold it tight because Sherlock left it limp. “You’re just nervous. I promise you’ll like it. I’m helping you. You’re learning. Now tell me, how do you know you’ve finished, when you’re pulling on your cock?”

Sherlock’s voice was full of muck and he kept his head turned toward the wall so John couldn’t see his face. “It comes out,” he whispered, and sniffed. “Jizz comes out.”

John groaned and ground his cock hard into Sherlock’s hand before letting it go. Sherlock let it lie wilted on the blanket where it fell, as if the hand didn’t even belong to him. “Good,” John told him, and reached for his chin, turning his face though Sherlock fought not to look at him. “Very good.” John rumpled the edge of the blankets in his free hand and thrust them down, baring Sherlock nearly to the knees. The drawstring on his pyjamas had been pulled free and the bottoms pulled halfway down his arse in back, below his bollocks in the front. Sherlock curled into himself on his side, drawing his knees up as John looked his fill of Sherlock’s dark-rosy prick, curving up toward his belly. Another rumbling sound from John’s throat, and he steadied Sherlock’s chin in his hand then mashed his mouth down on Sherlock’s fat pink lips, tugging his jaw down to keep his mouth open as John thrust his tongue in, searching in circles for Sherlock’s dodging, retreating tongue.

Sherlock made a loud whine of distress, tried to pull his face away, tried to shut his lips. John drew back, whispered, “Oh, hush now, you dirty boy. I know you like that. Your mouth was _made_ for kissing.” John kissed him again, sucking Sherlock’s bottom lip hard between his own lips, catching it between his teeth before letting go. As John withdrew, Sherlock swiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then again. His eyes were red when he opened them. John reached into the fly of his boxers and easily freed his own cock, heavy, flushed, running at the crown. “Watch here, see how a man does it. Make sure you’re doing it properly or you’ll make yourself sick, did you know that?”

Sherlock looked stricken, eyes wide and glistening.

John spit into his palm, gave himself a few long, slow, tight strokes, gathering pre-cum on the way back. His voice was hollow with breath. “See that? Is that how you do it?”

Sherlock’s mouth came open but he didn’t say anything, only watched, his eyes flicking between John’s hand working his cock and his lax-jawed face. After a few moments, Sherlock shook his head.

John had to stop, gave himself a pinch and took a breath.

“No? Why don’t you show me your way?”

Sherlock turned his face toward the pillow and shook his head vigorously. “No. I can’t.” It was muffled by the pillow.

“Come on now, don’t be shy.” John leaned close to Sherlock’s ear, bracing himself with one hand beside the pillow, sweeping his still spit-clammy hand down Sherlock’s torso, let it settle to rest on his hip. He licked, nipped, sucked at Sherlock’s earlobe and Sherlock made a noise that was less distressed and more needy. “See that, you like to be kissed like that, don’t you?” John pulled the lobe gently between his teeth, then swirled his tongue around it and nuzzled into the divot behind Sherlock’s jaw with the tip of his nose. He hummed. “God, you gorgeous boy. The things you make me want to do to you. . .”

John was quick and efficient in rising to stand, getting a solid grip on Sherlock’s jaw, and guiding the head of his prick into Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock’s facial muscles flexed beneath his fingers and thumb, trying to close his mouth or pull away, but John held him, thrusting the crown of his cock in and back, not too far. Sherlock gagged nonetheless.

“Settle down,” John sneered, annoyance rising in his voice. “I know you’ve been thinking of sucking a cock; here’s your chance.” Tears slid down Sherlock’s face, over the bridge of his nose. John kept working his prick in quick pulses, and Sherlock’s tongue swirled and pressed, trying to force him out. He gagged again, and saliva drooled out the corner of his mouth onto John’s hand, still gripping his chin. “You’re going to have bruises on your face if you keep fighting,” John warned, pressing his fingertips harder for a moment to demonstrate. “Then everyone will know what you’ve been up to. Is that—” his voice hitched as Sherlock’s tonguetip pressed against the slit in his cockhead. “That what you want? You want the boys at school to know you like sucking cock?”

Sherlock drew a hard breath in through his nose, and John could feel him consciously relaxing, his jaw softening, turning his head to adjust the angle.

“Good boy,” John huffed, and even as he slid his cock around inside Sherlock’s running mouth, he closed the root in the circle of his fingers to keep himself from coming. “That’s a good boy,” he crooned, voice much softer. “I knew you were a good boy. Go on and suck, or lick it like a lolly, do as you like.” Sherlock gave a couple of weak sucks, his cheeks hollowing a bit, then opened wide to swirl his tongue around John’s crown, then sucked again, a bit harder and longer. “That’s lovely. Lovely good boy, sucking a big man’s prick. Very good.” John slid his hand through Sherlock’s hair, clutched the back of his head and pulled him forward a bit. “Relax. . .” he groaned. “Relax. . .open your throat, lovely boy. You can do it. Be brave, now.” He shoved in much deeper, and Sherlock’s eyes went wide and spilled fat tears, but he tolerated it.

John was on the verge, could barely keep himself coming, but there was so much more he wanted to do. He drew back, pulled out, and rose to his full height. Sherlock turned his head, muffling the sound of gagging by burying his face in the pillow.

“Is your little prick hard?” John demanded, and before Sherlock could answer, John was reaching down to take him in hand. “Oh, that’s gorgeous,” John gruffed, tugging roughly down the length of Sherlock’s erection. “You love sucking a big cock. You did it so well. Next time I’ll come right down your throat, will I?”

Sherlock whimpered. John let out a derisive, grunting laugh, released Sherlock from his grip and patted his naked hip.

“You’ve been hard a long time now,” John said, reverting to a more or less normal tone of voice, instructive rather than predatory. “We should make sure you get to finish off soon; don’t want you to be sick.”

Sherlock rolled his head on the pillow, looked up at John with an expression halfway between curious and horrified.

“Oh, yes,” John told him, nodding gravely. “When you’re very excited you have to finish, and make the jizz come out of you—like you said—or you’ll get very sick. Fellas have died from it, I’ve heard.” Sherlock looked doubtful. “Better let me take care of you.” John got down on his knees beside the bed, and took Sherlock’s drizzling cock in one hand, urged him forward with one hand on his bottom so he was in reach. “Hush now, and let me take care of you,” he near-whispered, and stroked his hand down the length of Sherlock’s thigh. He licked his lips; Sherlock stared down at him, wide-eyed and still tearful. “It’s all right. We won’t tell anyone.” John leaned in and swiped his tongue along the side of Sherlock’s erection, from root to tip. Sherlock made a high, desperate sound. “Our secret,” John murmured, and circled his wet tongue around Sherlock’s crown, pressing the very tip of his tongue beneath the rim of foreskin, nudging it back to reveal more of the sensitive, pink skin beneath. “I’ll take good care of you. Just settle down now.”

John opened his lips and sank down on Sherlock’s prick, then sucked as he pulled back. Sherlock let go a tremulous moan, partway between pleasure and distress. John hummed approval and sank down again, mouth full of spit, tongue rolling though there was little room for it to move. He sucked harder on the way back, and Sherlock groaned. As John’s head moved forward again, he relaxed his throat to take Sherlock as deeply as he could manage, and slid his hand down along Sherlock’s buttock until his fingers sank into the cleft, and he squeezed, pulling Sherlock closer, barely tickling the perspiring skin between his arse cheeks with probing fingertips. He sucked hard as he pulled back, rocking his head on his neck, drawing a yelping cry from Sherlock. He pulled off and swallowed a mouthful of gathered saliva.

“You like that, dirty boy,” he said.

Sherlock hesitated but then breathed, “Yes.”

“Don’t be ashamed. You’re a big boy. This is what big boys do together. It’s meant to feel good. Does it?”

“Yes.”

“What a slut you are,” John said tonelessly, and watched tears gather anew in Sherlock’s red-rimmed eyes. He blushed mottled pink from his cheeks down his neck and even onto his chest, where John could see his nipples were hard as pebbles. “I’m going to make you come now. You’ll like it, you’ll see. I want you to let it go right into my mouth, like a good boy.”

Sherlock moaned a little, but he nodded.

“Good lad,” John told him, and squeezed his buttock, nestling his fingers closer into the cleft, pressing the tip of his ring finger against Sherlock’s tight little hole as he dug in. “You make me want to do so many lovely, dirty things. You’re so gorgeous, and so filthy.”

John’s mouth was watering as he rolled his tongue in a half-circle around the head of Sherlock’s cock, then sank down to surround it, shoving his tongue up and wriggling it against the sensitive spot there beneath the crown. He stayed there, sucked the head up against his upper lip, then drew back, pulling the skin along with tight lips, holding firm to Sherlock’s arse, now and then pressing with his fingertip, which made Sherlock jump and whine. He began a quick up-and-down, then, mouth tight, sucking, rolling his tongue, all the while digging in his fingers, eventually breeching Sherlock’s opening with one fingertip, and Sherlock began to moan, first through tight-bitten lips, and then his mouth fell open as his breath gusted out, low and loud, and John encouraged with humming groans until Sherlock’s shivering and whimpering and moaning let him know he was close to the edge. John drew back, shifted his head to make space, flicked his tongue-tip beneath the crown of Sherlock’s prick, and in a moment Sherlock was coming, bitter-salt spurts of hot fluid coating John’s tongue, filling the hollow of his cheek, mixing with his own flowing saliva.

Once Sherlock’s cock stopped pulsing, John released it, and spit the mess into his hand as he got to his feet, used it to stroke his own aching prick. “Good boy,” he said. “Didn’t I tell you I’d take good care of you?”

Sherlock’s mouth was dry around a croaky, “Yes.”

“Your spunk tastes so good, because you’re not grown yet. When you start fucking, when you’re a man, it’s no good to taste anymore.” John tipped his head. “Turn over on your other side,” he said. “Face the wall.”

“I don’t want to,” Sherlock whispered, looking nervously down at John’s hand as he slowly pulled his prick, slick with his spit and sticky with Sherlock’s cum.

“I’m not going to fuck you, don’t be scared.”

“I’m—” Sherlock started, and licked his lips nervously. “I’m not scared.”

“Turn over, then. Be a good boy. I need you to turn over so I can finish, too.  Go on. Turn over and show me your arse, cocky boy.”

Sherlock did as he was told. John looked his fill of the lanky, pale body as he shifted onto his back, knees tangled in his pyjama bottoms, then over onto his other side so his pale, curved back and plush cheeks were on display. Sherlock drew his legs up, hugged his knees a bit. John released his cock and it bobbed heavily, and he lowered himself onto the bed to lie behind Sherlock. He opened his mouth wide against the back of Sherlock’s neck, tongue and teeth claiming him, and John let go a deep groan as he spit again into his already sopping palm, slid it between Sherlock’s arsecheeks, streaking them with damp. His hand on Sherlock’s hip yanked him back, and John jabbed his cock into the cleft of Sherlock’s arse.

“I don’t like this,” Sherlock said again.

“You do,” John insisted, digging his mouth and nose in around Sherlock’s ear, the hollow of his neck behind his jaw. “You do like it. And anyway I need you to help me come so I don’t get sick.”

Sherlock’s hand quickly flicked up to his face and he swiped away a tear from his cheek. He sniffed. “OK.”

“Good boy.” John worked his cock through the circle of his fist, between Sherlock’s cheeks, bumping the fat head of his cock against Sherlock’s hole, rocking his hips as he thrust and thrust. “You hot little fuck. Slutty boy, look what you make me do.”

Sherlock sniffled loudly. His body was tense from his jaw, down his neck and spine, his legs stiffly arranged where John had put them.

“I’m gonna come on you now, fuck boy,” John growled against Sherlock’s neck, breath hot against his flexing jaw. “I don’t want to be sick, now, do I?” He rocked forward hard, then back. “I don’t want to be sick,” he muttered, and his orgasm shook him, but he kept thrusting through it, “I don’t want to be sick.” His cum jetted hot over his fingers, painting Sherlock’s hole, “I don’t. . .” he choked. “I don’t want to be _sick_ I don’t want to be _sick_ I don’t want to be _sick_ oh god, _oh my god_ —” His voice broke and he was sobbing, his eyes hot and stabbing with tears, nose filling, clutching hard to Sherlock’s hip. “ _I don’t want to be sick_. Oh god no. I don’t—I don’t—I’m not I’m _not_. . .”

Sherlock was with him instantly, saying his name, hushing him. “John, _shhh_. . . _John_. You’re all right.” He turned over quickly, and wrapped John in his long, strong arms, kissed his hair there by his ear. John was shuddering, blubbering like he couldn’t remember ever doing before in his life. He let go a long wail against Sherlock’s chest, digging his fingers into Sherlock’s back.

“Sherlock.” he could barely form words for the sobbing.

“ _Shh. . .shh_. . . _John_ , I’m here. We’re safe.”

“I’m not,” John hiccupped, struggling to get the words out, “I’m not _like that_.”

“No— _shh_ —no, I know you’re not.” Sherlock cradled him close, his arms so tight around John’s back, one long leg trapping John’s legs, sheltering him. “This is just residue. We’re safe.”

“I would never,” John huffed, then moaned out agony. He felt a painfully familiar shame, and was positively desperate to know he was forgiven. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he wept, and dug his face into Sherlock’s neck.

“No, of course not. You’re not really like that, John. I know you’re not; you’re good. You’re a good man.”

Sherlock’s hand moved to stroke his back, his shoulder, down his arm, while the other held him firm and tight, close to Sherlock’s chest.

“You were _crying_ ,” John said forlornly. His heart was breaking. He was so ashamed. So ashamed.

Sherlock drew back, found John’s chin and tipped his face up so their gazes met.

“I was crying for you,” he assured, voice soft as velvet. “I’m fine; I can bear it. It wasn’t real. But it made me sad for you—for the boy you were.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, lip quivering childishly. He could feel the snot on his upper lip and he hated it.

“ _Shh_ ,” Sherlock said again. “I’m all right. I promise I’m all right.” He reached up to smooth John’s hair from his forehead, stroked his eyebrow into place with one long finger. “ _Shh_. . .John.”

Saying each other’s names always helped them surface, tied them to the real world and their real lives.

“I’m not. . .”

“No, of course not. We talked this through, before. We know who you are. This was just imaginary. I’m all right, John. You’ll be all right, too.”

John was already beginning to calm; the worst of his weeping already passing away, his shuddering had stopped though now he was shivering a bit—he might have been cold—and the hideous, dark feeling that had filled him like pollution and made him want to run away from himself was evaporating up and out of him. He was left feeling hollowed out and sorry.

“Sure you’re OK?” he asked quietly, searching Sherlock’s face for any sign of lingering emotional trauma. He looked normal, strong and sure and kind, and John felt safer with each passing moment.

“I’m fine. I promise I’m fine.” Sherlock half-smiled, and leaned in to kiss John’s forehead there between his eyebrows. “You will be, too. We’ll stay here until you’re ready, then a shower and bed?” Sherlock suggested, eyebrows rising.

John nodded, and let his head drop back onto the pillow, nuzzling close to Sherlock’s chest and neck. Sherlock stroked long fingers through John’s hair, soothed him with little kisses on his forehead and eyelids, hushed him and reassured. After several minutes being stroked and soothed—the way he often did for Sherlock as they came back to themselves after spending time in their Daddy and boy roles—John was beginning to feel more himself, though emotionally exhausted. The crying had taken it out of him, of course, but now he was beginning to feel the bruises left by what he had found deep in that other headspace. He had distance from it; it wouldn’t keep him up all night or anything, but he would have to spend some time looking at it later, maybe talk it out a bit with Sherlock if he was willing to hear it. He allowed himself to set it aside, thought about the here and now—both of them sticky with the leavings of sex, the spare bedroom cooling uncomfortably as the evening wore on—and he longed for hot water, the smell of Sherlock’s shampoo, a fresh t-shirt and Sherlock’s ankles tangled with his as they drifted off to sleep.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Sherlock said quietly, agreeably, as if hearing John’s own thoughts. “Let’s get ready for bed.” He kissed John’s forehead again, and his closed eye.

“Thank you for doing this,” John told him, not quite ready to let him go.

“Whatever you need,” Sherlock said simply, and John was reassured.


	2. Precious Beyond Words

 

It was a few days before John was ready to even look at it in the light.

He slept easy that night after they’d indulged his dark impulse to roleplay his childhood abuse, in order that he might work through some feelings. The catharsis that followed had left John wracked with sobs: the sort of unguarded, shameless crying he couldn’t recall having done in adulthood—perhaps never in his life—and had wrung him out completely. They’d showered together, not talking much, then fell into bed.  Sherlock had tucked John against his chest, holding him close and safe in the arc of one long, muscular arm, and John had slept the night through, deeply and soundly. As they often did for each other, Sherlock had checked in with John the next morning as they puttered over coffee and toast in the kitchen.

“All right?”

“Yeah. I’ll let you know.”

Since then, it had been life as usual—no case on, Sherlock in the kitchen with the beakers and test tubes and Bunsen burner; John doing some consulting for a surgeon he knew, about an injury that resembled one John had frequently repaired during the war—and they hadn’t talked about it again. Sherlock had assured John he was fine and they’d vaguely agreed they might reassure themselves all was well, the next time they took up their Daddy and boy roles. But that was the total of the discussion, and they’d set it aside. They both knew it was there, but neither had an urgent need to look at it until he was—or more to the point, John was—ready.

Sherlock was quiet, and had been for hours, the only sounds from the kitchen the soft clink of the glass pipettes tapping the lips of the test tubes, and now and then the scratching of his pencil on a pad of lined paper he kept nearby. Once he even used the rubber, which was a revelation to John—that Sherlock could make a mistake so grave it needed rubbing out. John thought whatever it was must be the fault of the chemicals and reagents and catalysts; human error, in Sherlock’s case, seemed exceedingly unlikely. The soft clink and scrape, Sherlock’s occasional loud exhale, provided a comforting background soundtrack as John sat in his armchair with the morning papers, combing the inner sections for anything that looked interesting enough to share with Sherlock.

There was a story that caught his eye, about the Pope having made the first public apology to victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests, and he only read the first two paragraphs before he drifted into memory, not of his own abuse by the father of a boyhood friend (the mother saw John was a bit neglected because of his parents’ drinking and made a big fuss over him, though in the end his overnights in their home had cost him a great deal more than he’d gained; at least no one at home shoved his cock in John’s mouth when he was only nine years old) but of the scene he and Sherlock had roleplayed, which had set John’s gut roiling black and hot as tar, coating his insides with a slimy, poisonous ooze he worried might never fully wash away.

As it had been in his real childhood experience, cognitive dissonance was inherent to it even within the boundaries they’d set for the scene: bodies experienced pleasant sensation even as minds and hearts rejected the wrongness of the thing. John had felt angry and turned on, in some way loving though horribly cruel, powerful in the moment yet terrified of being found out. It was complicated and mind-bending, and he was relieved to have played it out inside such well-defined parameters. Sherlock had been understanding and reassuring, utterly without judgment, and willing to make it work. Sherlock had orgasmed; he’d held John while he came back to himself; he’d murmured reassurances and taken care of John in the wake of his breakdown. But while they were down in it, Sherlock had cried.

More than his own stuff—of which there certainly was some; John knew he was not actually an abuser and never would be, but he was still working through the intellectual part of all that emotion he’d processed—John was really hanging onto to the fact that Sherlock had looked at him with wide, terrified eyes; Sherlock had wept and turned away from him; Sherlock had sounded small and ashamed and afraid; Sherlock had said _No_. . .He’d cried, and even though John had elicited tears from Sherlock in the past, by spanking or otherwise punishing him, it had felt very different, probably because John had not comforted him afterward, hadn’t dried the tears or reassured Sherlock that he was loved. In the aftermath, Sherlock had assured John more than once that he’d wept from empathy for John as a child in a similar situation—though not of adults playing defined roles in a safe space, but  rather real and terrifying and awful—and John believed him. But even still. When Sherlock played his boy role, he was always utterly safe in John’s care (even when they played rough, even when John punished him); to have seen his sweet boy crying, frightened, truly sad. . .well, it just wasn’t on. It felt _wrong_ and John _needed_ to fix it.

Clever Sherlock (as ever; he was a genius in more ways than just solving puzzles, as it turned out), had suggested they might need some dedicated Daddy/Locky time afterward, to sort them, and now John thought that was precisely what was needed. He set the newspaper aside, got to his feet and stretched, rolling his toes against the rug, tugging his wrists far above his head. He crossed to stand behind Sherlock at the kitchen table. Laying his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, John softened his voice—a delicate shift in his tone that only Sherlock would ever pick up on as different from the usual—and asked, “Will you show me what you’re doing there, sweetheart?” The endearment was another subtle cue.

Sherlock took a quick visual inventory of his experiment; John saw his eyes darting, could almost hear the gears ratcheting in his head.

“If you want to,” John added. “I just thought. . .since we’ve got a few quiet hours to ourselves. . .plenty of time before dinner.”

Sherlock’s voice when his reply came was softer, too—different enough that anyone would notice, which is why only John ever got to hear it. He tapped each of several test tubes in their stand in its turn, with one finger. “These all have different reagents in them and I wait to see if the colour changes,” he reported. “And how long it takes and how much different it gets.”

John squeezed his shoulder a bit, leaned over to get a better look. “This one’s already gone a bit green, I see.”

Sherlock nodded.

“And you’ve got your notes here,” John motioned to the pad nearby. “Very well organized. Nicely done.”

Sherlock’s cheeks went a bit pink; he often blushed when John praised him.

“If you’ll be ready for a break in about a half hour, I’m going to run out and pick up a few things, then when I come back—”

Sherlock turned his face more toward John, looking quite eager to hear how this sentence would end.

“I’m going to spoil you a bit.”

Sherlock smiled broadly at this.

“Probably quite a lot, actually,” John admitted, and planted a kiss in Sherlock’s waves of dark hair, there at this temple. “We’ll have a wonderful time together.” He straightened up and his voice went back to normal, then, as he patted his pockets checking for wallet and keys. “Sounds all right?”

Sherlock started fiddling again with his experiment. “Mm,” he agreed. “When you get back, the game is on.”

“Excellent.” John went to the bedroom to fetch his shoes.

*

The kitchen table was still a riot of glass scientific equipment, and Sherlock’s notepad sat lined up with the table’s edge, a pen lying across it parallel to the printed lines on the paper, but Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. John hung his coat, toed off his shoes, set two plastic carrier bags on the coffee table by the sofa.

“I’m home, sweetheart,” he called, and started unpacking one of the bags onto the table. The other he folded shut for the time being.

From the bedroom, his boy Locky’s voice, “In here!” around his thumb, which he was meant to be giving up, but Daddy John wouldn’t say a word against it—not today. Today was for making his boy feel how very much his Daddy loved him. No scolding. No punishments.

“Are you coming out, then?” John asked.

“ _Mmm_ inute,” came the reply. Then, sounding pleased with himself, “I’ve had a bath.”

“Without even being told? What a good boy you are.”

A quiet, happy hum from the bedroom. John was working open a crinkly plastic bag when his sweet boy emerged from the bedroom, hair damp, eyes soft and wide, tip of his thumb between his lips (it was cute, John had to admit), smelling of sandalwood soap and wearing his jim-jams.

“There you are!” John exclaimed, and his broad smile came easily and naturally. Sherlock looked right past him, to the bags on the table.

“Did you bring me presents?” He lisped a little around his thumb. _Prethenths_.

“Yes, sweetheart,” John laughed, and opened his arms. “Can I have a hug before that?”

“ _Mm_ ,” Sherlock hummed, and grinned his soft sweet grin, looking up under his eyelashes as he moved into John’s embrace. John held him close, and kissed his cheek.

“That’s nice,” John told him as he let him go, “Lovely.”

Sherlock dropped his thumb from his mouth and wiped it dry with the hem of his soft t-shirt.

“What did you go out for, Daddy?”

John’s heart warmed to hear it—the precious, sweet name Sherlock honoured him with—and he had to clear away a thickening in his throat.

“Well, a few nice things,” John told him, and took Sherlock’s hand to guide him to the sofa. They both sat, and Sherlock tucked his legs up under him, bare feet tucked in beside his daddy’s thigh. “First, there are these.” He raised the plastic bag already in his hand, of strawberry-flavoured hard candies with soft, flowing centers. “I know you like them.”

Sherlock nodded furiously. “I do, I like them very much!”

“All for you, then, sweet boy.” John had got the bag open, and tilted it as if to pour. Sherlock held out his cupped hands, and John tipped out not a few of the sweets for him to catch. Each was wrapped in two-tone cellophane, red at the bottom, green at the top where they were twisted shut, to vaguely resemble strawberries. Sherlock looked so pleased, smiling sweetly, his fists full of candy.

“Thank you, Daddy.” His head ducked forward to kiss John quickly on the corner of his mouth.

“You’re welcome, my darling.”

Sherlock didn’t seem to know what to do with two handfuls of sweets, and looked around him, eventually sliding them out of his hands onto the coffee table in a little pile. He took one up and unwrapped it, popped it onto his tongue, and closed his eyes as he began to suck.

“ _Mmmm_. . .”

He plucked up another and held it out toward John. “You can have some, too; I don’t mind sharing.”

“Aren’t you kind?” John replied. “You keep it, though. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on your favourites.” Sherlock raised his eyebrows, but in the end he was probably relieved not to have to give up even one of the candies. Daddy rubbed his hands together and offered, “Shall we look at what else we’ve got?”

“Yes, please,” Sherlock said sweetly, and it made John reach out and gently squeeze his face, his hand cupped beneath Sherlock’s chin.

“You are _so cute_ —you know that?”

Sherlock’s face flushed up as pink as the candies.

“ _Mm_ , I just love you so much. You’re so sweet,” John told him, and Sherlock shook his face away from John’s gentle grip, smiling and shy in light of the praise.

“Love you too, Daddy” he said quickly. The wet way his voice sounded as he sucked on the candy made John have to shift a bit in his seat, but Sherlock only looked with curiosity at the carrier bags on the coffee table, craning his neck a bit.

John let out a little laugh and went back into the first bag, the open one. “Well, let’s see what else is here for you, sweetheart.  You know I love to make you smile.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a large, flat, square book. “I hope this you’ll like this one,” John said, and passed the book over to Sherlock, who accepted it eagerly, slurping audibly at his strawberry candy. John could hear him click it against the edges of his teeth, waiting for it to be sucked thin enough to bite so the liquid filling would run out onto his tongue, mixing with what was left, turning it chewy.

Sherlock accepted the book eagerly. “Is it dragons, Daddy?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“An encyclopedia of dragons,” John enthused, and tapped one finger on the cover. “Every dragon there is, from A to Z. Starts with, what, apple dragons and ends with zebra dragons?”

“Daddy, you’re being silly.” _Sthilly_.

“I am a bit, but only because I don’t know anything about dragons!” he protested. “You’ll have to tell me about them.”

Sherlock’s teeth crunched down on the candy then, and he started to reach for another even as he chewed the remainder of the first.

“Sweetheart, finish what you’ve got,” John reminded gently, and Sherlock left it, instead opened his book and started to page through.

“ _Air_ dragon,” he intoned, sounding very wise indeed, “Is the first one.”

“Right, of course,” John acquiesced. “A-I-R comes before A-P-P-L-E. I’m sure Apple dragons come soon after.” John moved closer, put his arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and drew him comfortably closer so they could both see the pages as Sherlock flipped them. They admired several of the illustrations, agreeing that the fire dragon looked fierce, and that the ice dragon was most interesting (“Do you suppose it breathes ice, or only air so cold it makes ice out of other things?”).

“This is a very good book,” Sherlock said seriously, as they reached the end and he closed it. “I need to read this one carefully.”

John kissed his temple. “I’m glad you like it, my darling.” Sherlock’s hand drifted again toward his pile of strawberry sweets. “Before you have another, can Daddy have a kiss? Only if you want to.”

Sherlock’s face lit up and he rearranged himself a bit, squaring their bodies to each other. John tipped his face, and their mouths came together, soft and just wet enough, and there was a clicking sound as they released each other, but John went back for more, and Sherlock opened his mouth—trusting, inviting—and John dipped his tongue in to taste the coating of sugary imitation strawberry sweetness in Sherlock’s mouth. They both hummed a bit, enjoying each other’s lips and tongues, until John drew back, smiling.

“I love kissing you,” he whispered.

“Me too, Daddy,” Sherlock replied, and his whisper was a bit ragged.

“That one was especially sweet.” John tipped his head. “Have another, if you like.”

Sherlock smiled and didn’t hesitate to unwrap another of the glassy-looking pink sweets and suck it between his lips, fiddling it between his front teeth a bit before he guided it inside once and for all with his tongue.

“Do you like your presents so far?” John asked.

“Oh, yes!” Sherlock said quickly, around the candy in his mouth. _Oh, yeths!_

“I’m so pleased, sweetheart,” John told him, and stroked Sherlock’s thigh through his soft pyjama bottoms. “Daddy loves to make you happy. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.” _Yeths._

“You’re easy to spoil,” John said playfully. “You’re the best boy.”

Sherlock’s eyes drifted down and away, greedily soaking up the praise, but bashful about how much it pleased him.

“Look, darling,” John said softly, and took Sherlock’s hand in both of his. “Look here at me a minute, can you?” Sherlock looked up from under his eyelashes. “You know Daddy would never do anything to make you unhappy, don’t you?”

Sherlock nodded, looking serious. He quickly crunched up whatever was left of his sweets, and swallowed, then thrust his thumb into his mouth and started to suck, the muscles in his cheeks and jaw gently working.

“All right, darling?” John frowned.

Sherlock hesitated, then nodded again, but looked away.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart,” John crooned, and stroked one hand up Sherlock’s forearm. “Something wrong?”

“No, Daddy.” It wasn’t entirely convincing.

“Listen, sweetheart,” John began, still stroking Sherlock’s arm comfortingly. “You know that everything we do together is just fine so long as we don’t hurt each other, don’t you? We’ve talked about this.”

Sherlock nodded his understanding. “Uh-huh,” he said around his thumb, then went back to sucking on it. Not just the tip of his thumb, John noticed, but the whole thing, which he only did when he was very aroused, or feeling in great need of comfort. Since clearly the former was not the case at the moment, John could only assume something was upsetting him.

“Right, and if I ever do anything that you don’t like, you can tell me right away. You remember that? That’s one of our rules.”

Sherlock nodded, and his eyes glistened and shimmered a bit.

“Because I only want to be sweet to you, my darling boy. You are so precious, and so sweet, and I would never do anything to hurt you or scare you. You’re the most special boy and your Daddy loves you.” He lifted Sherlock’s hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “Daddy loves you so much, sweetheart, I can’t even find the words for it. That’s why we kiss and touch each other and make each other feel good, right, sweetheart? To show how much we love each other. You’re always safe with me. You can always say no and I’ll stop anything you don’t like.”

“I know, Daddy.”

Sherlock’s voice was barely a whisper. He moved to snuggle up closer against John’s chest and his head dropped, nuzzling his face into John’s shirtfront. After a moment, his whole body shuddered and he sniffled.

“Oh, what’s wrong, darling boy?” John soothed, though of course he knew exactly what was wrong, had anticipated his reiteration of their rules might provoke Sherlock to a display of emotion. “Sweetheart, you’re fine, Daddy’s got you.”

“I didn’t like it,” Sherlock sobbed out around his thumb, his forehead pressed tight into the divot below John’s collarbone. “He made me say dirty words. He looked at me. . .”

“Shh, sweetheart, you’re safe.”

“He touched me and when I said _No_ he told me I was filthy. He called me bad names.”

John’s arms were tight around him, protecting him, keeping him close and safe against his chest.

“I didn’t like it. It felt bad.”

“Oh, my precious boy,” John murmured against his hair, and kissed him there. “I am so sorry that happened to you. I’m so terribly sorry it was scary and made you feel bad.” John rocked him a bit. He knew well that Sherlock liked to be rocked; it soothed him. “I’m so very, very sorry. Nothing like that should ever happen to a perfect, sweet boy like you.”

Sherlock shook his head _No_ , agreeing that it should never happen.

“I love you so much, sweetheart. So very much. All I want to do is make you feel good and keep you safe. You know you’re a good boy, don’t you? You know you’re not dirty.”

Sherlock shrugged hard.

“Anyone who tells you that you’re bad or dirty is a liar. And anyone who touches you in a way you don’t like is bad, and very sick indeed. You’re _good_ , my darling. You’re a good boy. You’re perfect.”

“Not anymore,” Sherlock said into John’s shirt, and there was a wet spot gathering there from the bit of saliva escaping the corner of his mouth, around his thumb. “Dirty,” Sherlock spit out, and his shoulders heaved.

“No,” John said, quick and firm, but not angry. “You’re not dirty. You’re the most beautiful, perfect boy there is. I’m so lucky you’re mine. I love being your daddy more than anything else I do. I love taking care of you and making you feel good. I’m sorry if you felt bad, darling, you should never have to. You’re precious. I love you so, so much.”

Sherlock looked up. His eyes were wet and he let go of his thumb. “Do you still?”

John bit his lips. “Of course I do, sweetheart. I love you more than anything.”

“I didn’t like it.”

“I know,” John said. “I’m sorry.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long minute, and John stroked Sherlock’s hair until he’d settled.

“I really am so sorry,” John said again. “I love you, Sherlock; you’re perfect. I’m sorry.”

“I’m all right. You take good care of me. You’re my Daddy.” Sherlock shrugged a bit— _obviously you take care of me_ —then grinned his charming, boyish grin, and it seemed they were both sufficiently reassured, because after a quick, crooked kiss on John’s chin, Sherlock was leaning back and away, toward the bags on the table again. “Is it. . .?” he began, then seemed to remember himself, recognize he might sound greedy, and some of the eagerness went out of his voice. “I like my presents but are there any more?”

John laughed and patted Sherlock’s knee, then leaned to take up the folded-shut bag into his lap. “One last thing, yes,” he said, and the look of joyful anticipation on Sherlock’s face was the perfect balm for John’s last lingering pain. He really was the sweetest boy. What a treasure. John was very aware in that moment of Sherlock’s surrendering all his trust to John, and that he did it readily, with never the slightest hesitation. John was all at once so humbled by it, if he hadn’t already been sitting, he’d have gone straight to his knees beneath the weight of it. He must deserve it—Sherlock would never be so vulnerable with anyone even the slightest bit unworthy—but for the life of him, he’d never understand how that had come to pass. He must have done something remarkable in previous life to be so richly rewarded in this one, for nothing he could recall to this point made him fit for this. He resolved, anew, to do everything in his power to be worthy of it.

Sherlock was still looking at him expectantly, fingers swirling slowly through the pile of cellophane-wrapped sweets, not only because he wanted another, but because he liked the noise the crinkling wrappers made as he shifted them gently against each other.

“I wish I could have wrapped it like a proper present,” John told him, “But I was in such a rush to get back here to you, I didn’t want to waste a minute.” He handed over the carrier bag and Sherlock settled it in his lap.

“Big, but not heavy,” Sherlock observed.

“You’re so clever,” John said admiringly. “You’ll deduce it before you get it open, I’ll bet.”

“No, I don’t want to ruin the surprise,” Sherlock told him, and then ever-so-carefully began to pick apart the top of the bag to reveal its contents, rather slower than John would have imagined. After a bit of rustling the bag, Sherlock dipped his hand inside as the other tugged the bag away.

“Oh, Daddy! This is the best present ever!” Sherlock exclaimed, and his face was bright and wide-open. The present was a floppy-limbed cuddly toy in the shape of a dog, with lovely soft red-brown fur, and a smile sewn with black thread. Its plastic eyes were several shades of bronze and copper, and it had a dark green, woven-canvas collar around its neck, dangling a silvery round tag. Sherlock buried his face in its belly, holding it by the front legs, which he pressed against his cheeks. He hummed his delight into the soft fur.

“You don’t think Sporty Ned will get jealous, though,” John said, sounding concerned.

Sherlock drew his face out of the fur and looked narrowly at John. “It’s _Sporting_ Ned, Daddy.”

“Right, right.”

“You _know_ this.” Sherlock sounded so irked and slightly disappointed, quite grown-up, and he practically _tsk_ ed. John laughed out loud.

“Sorry, darling. Don’t know why I always forget.” He winked, and Sherlock looked only slightly less exasperated, fiddled with the tag hanging from the stuffed dog’s neck. “What’s this one’s name, then?” John asked

Sherlock turned the tag over, scrutinized it. “It says Rex, but that’s only his surname.”

John was taken aback. “That so? What’s his whole, proper name, then?”

“St George Rustington Rex.”

Daddy looked impressed. “He’s posh, then.”

“He goes by Goggie.”

“Goggie the doggy?” John sought confirmation, and Sherlock nodded, then held Goggie up beside his face and nuzzled his cheek and nose against it, turning to inhale.

“Yes,” Sherlock confirmed. “I love him. Ned won’t mind; he’s always wanted company in the back of the wardrobe.”

“Lovely, then,” John said, and smiled, and reached for Sherlock to come back into his arms. Sherlock settled in against him. “Thank you for all these nice gifts, Daddy.”

“You’re very welcome. I told you I was going to spoil you.” Sherlock held Goggie up against his neck, just under his chin. “And now you get to choose what else you might like,” John prompted, “to make you feel good.”

Sherlock tilted his head at this.

“Anything at all, sweet boy,” John told him.

“ _Mm_. . .” Sherlock hummed, thoughtful. “What if it’s naughty?”

“Long as it’s not hurting anyone,” John said. Then after a half-second he added, “And nothing illegal. Were you going to say we should become pirates?”

Sherlock giggled. “ _Daddy_. No.”

“Because that would be fun for you, I know—and for me, too—but I can’t let you do anything that could put us in jail.”

“Daddy.” Sherlock sounded equally amused and exasperated.

“Jail is no place for us, darling.”

“I was only going to say let’s get in the bed, Daddy.”

“Ah! Well then. Lead on, Macduff.”

Sherlock got to his feet, made a pocket of the bottom of his t-shirt by holding the hem up and filled it with sweets. Goggie the cuddly toy dog was under his arm.

“It’s _lay on, Macduff_ ,” Sherlock informed him, and then started toward the bedroom. “Come on, then.”

John smiled; his boy was so clever and so funny. He was cute as anything. He was precious.

When they got to the bedroom, Sherlock dumped the sweets in a pile by his pillow, dropped Goggie beside the sweets, and took off his t-shirt before clambering onto the bed, propping himself up a bit by stacking pillows.

“So what are we about, then?” John asked, quiet, smiling. Sherlock patted the bed beside his own hip, and John sat beside him, leaning down to plant a kiss on his bare shoulder. “Tell Daddy what you want, sweetheart.”

“I want my thumb.”

John laughed a little. “Of course you do. That’s fine. I won’t say a word.”

“And I want candy.”

“Also no surprise,” John grinned, and stroked one hand down Sherlock’s arm. “Much as you like, but I’m watching you clean your teeth later, before you go to sleep.”

“And I want you to pet me.”

Sherlock rushed his own hand in a wavy path down his own chest and belly. John knew what this meant, _petting_ —he often sent Sherlock off to sleep by rubbing light circles onto his back, or tracing spiraling tracks across his chest or down his arms.

“Tired, darling? Do you want a nap?”

“No nap!” Sherlock insisted, and he set his jaw in an almost-pout.

“All right, all right. . .” John made a gesture of surrender.

Sherlock picked up one of the candies, considered it for a moment, then set it back in the pile. He tucked Goggie over one shoulder, around the side of his neck and against his throat, and his head sank toward it a bit, like a pillow. In went the tip of the thumb, and John could hear the soft, wet noises of Sherlock’s thumbsucking as he leaned in to plant a few gently sucking kisses along the edge of Sherlock’s jaw.

“Pet me, please,” Sherlock said seriously, as if he were losing patience.

“Can I kiss, too?”

“Yes, so long as you’re petting.”

“All right then. Whatever you want,” John reminded him. “And if I ask you about something, you can answer honestly yes or no, and I won’t mind. It’s all up to you.”

Sherlock’s only response was to remove his thumb from his mouth just long enough to grab his daddy’s hand and place it atop the middle of his own chest. John let out a quiet laugh and settled against the pillows at a more comfortable angle, then began tracing a spiraling pattern across Sherlock’s upper chest, slow and lazy, lightly but not tickling. Once again sucking the tip of his thumb, Sherlock let out a contented hum, and nodded his head on his neck so the fur of the stuffed dog stroked his face.

“Sweet boy,” John murmured, and kissed his temple. “Feeling nice?”

“ _Mm-hmm_.” The reply was languid and soft. John had reached the opposite edge of his chest by then, so smoothed his palm back the way he’d just come, as if erasing what he’d just drawn. He used the tips of three fingers, dragging downward, then again, and again, working his way back across Sherlock’s chest. He littered soft kisses down the side of Locky’s face, starting beside his eye, down toward his jaw.

“I love you so much, my sweet boy,” John whispered against the soft divot behind his earlobe. “You’re so precious to me.”

Having completed another crossways journey with his hand on Sherlock’s chest, he swept his palm back again to the start, then skidded downward, and petted him slowly across and back, across and back, over his belly, softly rising and falling in time with his breath. “So sweet,” John crooned to him. “You’re the most perfect boy.”

Sherlock hummed again, and turned his head, letting go his thumb.

“Kisses, please, Daddy.” His voice was hoarse with something like sleep that probably wasn’t sleep. John raised his face and wet his lips, and in the end it was Sherlock who kissed him, his breath still sugary-sweet from the strawberry candies, and John was pleased at his ferocity, licking his tongue into John’s mouth and making a quiet, high noise in his throat.

They paused for breath and John said, “You needy little thing,” in a tone that conveyed his delight over it, “Kissing Daddy hard.”

“ _Mm_ , yes.” _Yeths_. “More please, Daddy.”

“Anything,” John replied, then tilted his chin up as Sherlock’s lips found his again, and they sucked and tugged at each other, and Sherlock pressed his tongue inside his daddy’s mouth boldly, and whined a bit, but it wasn’t an unhappy whine. John’s hand had come to rest in the center of Sherlock’s abdomen, just below the level of his heart.

“You’re not petting,” Sherlock accused, bordering on fresh in a way that made John think he was testing the boundaries, to see if John would scold him, or punish him.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” John apologized immediately. “I just got caught up in your sweet kisses.” He let his hand drift until it was tracing the shape of the pectoral muscle, and he tapped lightly with his thumb on Sherlock’s nipple. “Can I touch you here? Pet you here?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” Sherlock said, a little breathlessly, and he let go his thumb to fish out a candy from the pile stashed beside his pillow, unwrapped it by slipping the wrapped candy between his lips, and pinching the cellophane as he pulled it away, so that the candy stayed behind his teeth. John heard the soft click and rattle, then Sherlock swallowed wetly and began to suck. John could see the little bulge of it in Sherlock’s cheek.

John began to work his thumb insistently east-to-west and back again across Sherlock’s nipple, and it beaded up hard beneath the friction. He kept up this steady rhythm and dipped his head to open his mouth against the base of his boy’s throat. Sherlock dropped his head back against the pillow to bare his neck, so trusting, so willing.

“You sweetheart,” John murmured, still abrading the nipple as he pressed his teeth against the soft skin at the side of Sherlock’s neck, then backed off and began to suck in time with the movement of his thumb. After a few beats, Sherlock’s pelvis began to rock in time with it, just slightly, and John could hear that Sherlock’s mouth had come open—his breath was loud as he shifted the candy wetly around with his tongue, clacking it against his teeth now and then.

“ _Mm_. . .Daddy. . .” Sherlock moaned quietly, and it went straight to John’s prick. He sucked and stroked through a few more cycles before he released Sherlock’s neck, leaning back to look.

“Pretty boy,” he murmured. He turned his gaze downward and watched Sherlock’s hips undulating in time with the movements of John’s thumb, now circling the hard little bud of the nipple so that his thumbnail offered a different sensation as it came around. “Can I kiss it?”

“Yes!” Sherlock breathed. “Don’t stop. Kiss the other.”

“Clever you,” John told him, and ducked to feed his tongue to the circling thumb, leaving behind plenty of saliva. Sherlock sucked a loud breath and his hips jutted up hard once before settling back into gentler rocking. John moved to settle against Sherlock’s chest at the near side, licked his lips, and closed them around the tiny, hard bead of the nipple. Sherlock’s whole torso thrummed, his back bowing up to meet John’s kiss.

He circled both of Sherlock’s nipples, then—one with this thumb and one with his tongue—slowly at first, but gradually increasing the pace. Sherlock bit down hard on his strawberry sweetie and John heard it crack apart, and applied more pressure with thumb and tongue, and hummed encouragement. Sherlock crunched the rest of the candy, then swallowed noisily. His hand landed on the back of John’s head, and the other caught his forearm, wrapping around his wrist and squeezing urgently. He whined out loud, a needy, high sound from the top of his throat, and John could sense that his hips were rocking up harder now.

“ _Mm_ , Daddy,” he whined, “I need. . .”

John kept up with his worship of Sherlock’s sensitive nipples, feeling how they had become swollen from the attention, were probably headed toward oversensitivity, maybe even a bit sore. He made a questioning noise and Sherlock’s body shivered as John’s voice vibrated through his chest.

“My. . .I— _Daddy_. . .”

John slowed his rhythm, made two lazy strokes around the nipples with thumb and tongue-tip, then pulled away. He looked up and said quietly, “Whatever you want, my precious boy. Anything you want.”

“I don’t want to say,” Sherlock said, and he dragged the stuffed dog from where it was tucked between neck and shoulder, up onto his tipped-back face, covering it.

“You know you can say anything,” John assured him, and kissed softly just beside his swollen, spit-damp nipple, there on the pleasantly brown-pink ring of skin surrounding it. “You can use dirty words if you want to. Grown-up words. I don’t mind.”

Sherlock shook his head slowly side to side, but after a moment he said into the muffling fur of the toy, “I want you to kiss me. . . my. . .”

“I think I know,” John replied, saving his boy the embarrassment. “Would you like Daddy to use his mouth on your prick, sweetheart? Would you like me to kiss and lick you there?”

“Yes, please, Daddy, _please_ ,” Sherlock was whiney, desperate, and John kissed him on the other areola then, and flicked his tongue against it, the newly relaxed skin wrinkling up a bit in response.

“ _Shh_ , sweetheart, _shh_ ,” he soothed. “Will that make you feel good? I want you to feel so, so good.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, and slowly drew the stuffed dog away from his face. Now that his daddy had said the words for him, he was less bashful and met John’s eyes with his soft, guileless gaze. “Will you be sweet about it, please, Daddy? Can you just be sweet?”

John’s throat thickened and his heart ached. He smiled softly up at his darling boy, and said, “If that’s what you want, I’d love to be sweet to you. You’ll feel so good, I know. Just softly. Softly.” John’s voice had faded to a whisper by the time he finished, and he shifted himself down the bed so that he was leaning on his elbow by Sherlock’s hip. He ducked to plant a kiss on the crest of bone there, then let his hand stroke down Sherlock’s pyjama-clad thigh, the crown of Sherlock’s erection already making itself known, pushing out through the fly, leaking clear fluid from the slit.

“Oh, look at you,” he murmured, “Look at you, lovely boy. I am going to be so sweet to you. Are you comfortable? I want you to feel like you could almost go right to sleep, and I’ll take care of you. Settle in, sweetheart, get cozy.”

Sherlock did as John suggested, readjusting himself on the bed a bit so that his upper back, neck, and head were cradled by the pile of pillows and the stuffed toy.

“All right if I get undressed, too?” John asked, and Sherlock hummed his assent, so John quickly shed all but his boxers and vest. Standing by the foot of the bed, he lay one hand on Sherlock’s ankle. “Warm enough? Can I cover you up so you’re nice and snuggly warm?”

“OK,” Sherlock agreed, speaking around his thumb again. His face was tipped to one side, and he nuzzled in slow motion against the belly of the stuffed dog, looking for all the world as if he really might go to sleep. John tucked the quilts around his legs and feet, then crawled in under them himself, lying on his side with his chest pressed against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock rolled up onto his side most of the way, and hummed contentedly. “All right, Daddy?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

“Oh, just perfect,” John assured him, and stroked his thigh, let his hand rest there above Sherlock’s knee. “Can we tug down your jim-jams so I can make you feel good, sweet boy? Only if you want to.”

Sherlock didn’t make a sound in reply, but his hand went to the waistband and he hooked his thumb in, tugging down. John helped, gently pulling at the back so that his hand traced the curve of Sherlock’s bottom as he went, and Sherlock lifted his hip off the mattress until the pyjamas were down around his knees.

“Lovely,” John murmured, and leaned to press a kiss in the crease of hip and thigh, just a light kiss, chaste except for where it was placed. He leaned up on his elbow, propping his head in his hand, and let the other hand stroke down the length of Sherlock’s thigh once more, slowly, then up along the back so that his palm and fingertips slid up over the curve of one buttock, then down again. Sherlock hummed.

“Aren’t you the loveliest, most precious boy,” John said quietly. “Shall I call you handsome? Or pretty?”

“ _Mm_. . .pretty,” Sherlock said around his thumb.

“You’re _so_ very pretty,” John assured, and placed another kiss—this time with parted lips—at the very crest of Sherlock’s hip, moved a bit, kissed again. “Every bit of you is just perfect.” Another kiss, with a swipe of John’s tongue tip. “Spare a pillow for your old daddy?” John asked, and Sherlock passed him one, which John arranged under his neck. “I want to take my time making you feel good, and being so sweet to you, my pretty boy.”

John moved his hand in a gentle, lazy meandering swirl across and over Sherlock’s bottom, just caressing, and after quickly licking his palm, he wrapped the other hand around the base of Sherlock’s cock and steadied it, then placed a trail of open-mouthed kisses down one side until he reached the circle of his fingers, skipped over them to nuzzle the tip of his nose into the patch of wiry hair—surprisingly, delightfully, more coppery-auburn than the hair on his head—and took in the smell of him: clean from the bath faintly scented with sandalwood soap; and the rising, deepening scent of his desire, low and hot.

“ _Mmmm_. . .Oh, you smell so nice.”

John kept his nose and mouth tucked into the deep heat of Sherlock’s pubic hair, and let his hand slide up the length of his prick, drawing a low whimper from Sherlock. John circled his palm over the crown, gathering pre-cum to ease his way back down to the base. His dragging thumb gently tugged Sherlock’s foreskin back as he went, and Sherlock hummed. John let his chin dip, leading the way, wet his lips and brushed them soft and wet against Sherlock’s bollocks, closing gently  to suck, then immediately curling his tongue around beneath. He slid his hand again, squeezing softly the way he knew Sherlock liked, and ducked his head low, his tongue stroking flat and wide and wet—but soft, slow, sweet—up between Sherlock’s balls, then continuing along the underside of his prick, feeling the ridge of vein, tasting the stale, faintly sour taste of his own left-behind saliva until he reached the crown and slowly, oh-so-slowly, circled his tongue around it, flicking gently against the sensitive spot beneath.

Sherlock’s hips began to roll gently as John tickled fingertips over his bottom, holding only the head of his cock in the cradle of his lower lip, letting saliva gather in his mouth as Sherlock pushed in slightly with each movement of his pelvis. He let go a series of soft, sleepy sounds that John found comforting; his boy was safe and cradled in the pleasure John was giving. Tracing fingers down the cleft of Sherlock’s arse, not sinking in, only gliding along, John eventually came to the juncture of buttock and thigh, then around beneath the plump mound, and down the thigh, tracing the valley beside the quadriceps muscle, then up again to grip the plump bottom just firmly enough to guide Sherlock’s hips closer to his waiting, willing mouth. John rolled a wet swipe around the crown then lowered his tongue so Sherlock could fuck deeper into his mouth—just the one thrust, and he stayed, as John’s tongue swirled soft and wet around his oozing cock.

Sherlock shifted his leg, making space for John to tickle the tip of his middle finger in a quick, gentle flutter over the tight wrinkle of Sherlock’s hole. Sherlock pulled in a thick breath—deep but not sharp—his every movement, every sound, muffled as if he were close to sleep, all the edges buffed away to softness. John kept tickling him between the cheeks, and Sherlock let out quiet, low moans in time with the gentle undulations of his hips. His prick swelled and dripped in John’s mouth, and John drew away, trailing saliva between his lip and Sherlock’s foreskin.

“Pretty boy. Does it feel good?” he asked softly, and drew enough of Sherlock’s crown back between his lips to gently suck, matching the quiet motion of Sherlock’s hips.

“ _Mmmmm_ . . .” a delicious, low hum from his darling boy, then an open-mouthed moan as John stopped sucking to circle his tongue around again, flick bittersweet fluid from the slit with the tip of his tongue. “ _Daddy_. . .”

John sucked twice, three times, drew back just long enough to say, “My sweet, good boy. I love making you feel good,” then quick-licked his lips and pressed forward again, taking more of Sherlock’s cock in his mouth and sucking just a bit more firmly before releasing—a quiet, appreciative groan around his boy’s prick—then sucking again. Sherlock’s cock twitched, and he thrust slightly harder, with longer strokes as his hips rolled more urgently, and Sherlock’s fingers raked backwards through his daddy’s hair. John changed the tempo and pressure of his finger against Sherlock’s opening, tightly puckered and slick with sweat, dragging down, and down, and down over it, pausing at the top of each pass.

Sherlock was whining, high and needy, and John relished the way Sherlock surrendered his need, surrendered all self-consciousness, all shame, trusted John, sank so easily and willingly into the pleasure John was more than willing to provide. More than merely willing, John was _honoured_. His boy Locky—utterly vulnerable, emotionally wide-open—was the most precious gift John had ever been given.

All at once, Sherlock hiccupped a little gasp of “Daddy!” and John hummed affirmation, _yes, oh yes_ , and steadied Sherlock’s prick, rolled his tongue around and around as Sherlock shivered, his entire, long body gently thrumming with the rolling heat of his orgasm. His voice was muffled, against the pillow or the belly of his new cuddly toy, and he hummed in long, low, waves as his cum pulsed hot and salty over John’s tongue, and John swallowed it down until there was no more, and Sherlock’s movements were shallow as he went on gently rocking into John’s mouth for a few more slow, lazy strokes, then drew back and away.

John nuzzled into the dank-smelling heat of him, in the fold between belly and thigh, pubic hair rough against one cheek, tongue digging in to taste body salts and the musk of Sherlock’s pleasure. Sherlock’s hand stroked his hair a few times, then down the back of his neck. John kissed and nuzzled his way up Sherlock’s body, there in the curve of his hip, up over the crest of the bone, down again into the soft bellyskin at the side of his waist. He steadied himself with an arm half-around Sherlock’s back, kissed his way up the belly, dragged the tip of his nose up his sternum, inhaling the different, more open scent of light perspiration between his pectoral muscles, there over his heart. Ultimately, he pressed kisses in the hollow between Sherlock’s collarbones, and all the while Sherlock made happy little puppy-whimpering noises through closed lips, and ran the long, bony fingers of one hand along the back of John’s neck and shoulders, his triceps, biceps, sounding so pleased to feel his daddy’s strong arms.

Dry lips against the side of Sherlock’s throat, nearing his ear, just beneath his jaw, John murmured against the pulse point there, “You’re so sweet. . .oh, my perfect, darling boy.”

Sherlock’s voice was low and sleepy. “That was nice, Daddy.”

“Sweetheart,” John crooned, and kissed him softly at his temple, the corner of his closed eye. “I’m so glad. Taking care of you is my favourite, favourite thing in the whole world.” He fitted his lips in against Sherlock’s, which were slack but welcoming at first, until Sherlock began to kiss back, the faintest flicker of his tongue-tip against John’s lips, then dipping in, then out again. “I love you so much,” John told him, and stroked his hand through Sherlock’s hair, wound a wave of hair around his finger. “You are the most precious boy. I only want to make you feel nice, and make you happy.”

“You do,” Sherlock said, and he rubbed the soft fur of the cuddly toy along the edge of his jaw, sunk his face down toward the pillow.

“That’s lovely to hear,” John murmured, and kissed his bottom lip, soft as a whisper. “What else can I do for you, good boy?” he asked quietly,

Sherlock hummed thoughtfully, and John waited for his reply. “More petting?” he asked softly.

“Of course,” John told him, and began to stroke his hand down from the top of Sherlock’s head, down the long side of his neck, down his chest.

“Can I go asleep?” Sherlock whispered. His eyes were closed, and every muscle was soft with satisfied exhaustion.

“If you like,” John told him, and started again with fingers in his hair, petting down the lean, melted length of him. “Just a nap, though. It’s not bedtime yet.” He kissed Sherlock below his closed eye. The tip of Sherlock’s thumb found its way back between his lips. John reached down for the quilt tucked around Sherlock’s knees and dragged it up, wrapping Sherlock in it, kissing his chin, his cheek, his temple, and petting his hair and his neck and shoulder. In no time, Sherlock’s breathing became shallow and drawn out, his lips falling open around his thumb, and John stroked him for another minute or so until he was certain Sherlock was asleep.

Rolling over so his back was to Sherlock, he replayed the whole scene in his mind: Sherlock’s sweet, open bearing as he slipped into his boy role; his strawberry-candy sweetened kisses; his precious self given over to John utterly and without reservation. He licked his palm, stroked himself steadily, pinching his foreskin around the head of his aching prick, his entire being buzzy with a wash of what he thought must be every shade and flavour of hormones his body was capable of producing. He thought of Sherlock’s noises of pleasure—his moans and whimpers, his voice muted by the toy John had given him to snuggle—and he licked the insides of his lips, tasting Sherlock’s salt-and-bitter left-behind cum. He jerked himself quick, his hips rocking up into his hand, and it only took a few pulls before he was coming into his palm, between his fingers, biting his lips and breathing hard.

A quick stumble to the bathroom to clean himself up, and John returned to the bedroom to retrieve his clothes and dress—he’d order them some dinner while Shrlock dozed—gazing at Sherlock’s sleeping form, wrapped in the quilt under which they slept every night together, close and loving and safe. There was something about Sherlock even then that was still the same sweet and trusting boy he became in the safety of his daddy John’s care—and not only that he was clutching a stuffed toy, with a pile of cello-wrapped sweets beside him by the pillow—there was something about his face, the softness around his closed eyes and his forehead creases that were now as smooth as they ever got. He was precious in all of his guises: boy and man, lover and partner, colleague and friend and remarkable genius that he was. That John got to see not just the face he showed the world, but the tenderest, most vulnerable parts of him as well, was an honour and a privilege John treasured and was humbled by. God, how he loved him.

John leaned down and kissed Sherlock’s cheek, soft and lingering. Sherlock inhaled sharply but otherwise was still and silent, safe and sweet, and precious beyond words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have written other Daddy/Locky stories (none as harrowing as this), which are orphaned works but which you can find by searching the username HideInPlainSight.


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